Distribution of Arteriosclerotic Vessels in Patients with Arteriosclerosis and the Differences of Serum Lipid Levels Classified by Different Sites.

Objective: To investigate the distribution of arteriosclerotic vessels of arteriosclerosis, differential serum lipid profiles, and differences in the proportion of dyslipidaemia between patients with single-site arteriosclerosis and multi-site arteriosclerosis (significant hardening of ≥2 arteries).

Methods: The data of 6581 single-site arteriosclerosis patients and 5940 multi-site arteriosclerosis patients were extracted from the hospital medical record system. Serum total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TGs), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), apolipoprotein (Apo) A1, ApoB concentrations and C-reactive protein (CRP) between patients with single-site arteriosclerosis and multi-site arteriosclerosis were collected and analyzed.

The cardiac cycle modulates learning-related interoception.

Behavior is guided by the compatibility of expectations based on past experience and the outcome. In a recent study, Fouragnan and colleagues report that absolute prediction error (PE)-related heart-evoked potentials (HEPs) differ according to the cardiac cycle phase at outcome, and that the magnitude of this effect positively correlates with reward learning in healthy adults.

Neural correlates of retrospective memory confidence during face-name associative learning.

The ability to accurately assess one's own memory performance during learning is essential for adaptive behavior, but the brain mechanisms underlying this metamemory function are not well understood. We investigated the neural correlates of memory accuracy and retrospective memory confidence in a face-name associative learning task using magnetoencephalography in healthy young adults (n = 32). We found that high retrospective confidence was associated with stronger occipital event-related fields during encoding and widespread event-related fields during retrieval compared to low confidence.

Cardiorespiratory rhythm-contingent trace eyeblink conditioning in elderly adults.

Learning outcome is modified by the degree to which the subject responds and pays attention to specific stimuli. Our recent research suggests that presenting stimuli in contingency with a specific phase of the cardiorespiratory rhythm might expedite learning. Specifically, expiration-diastole (EXP-DIA) is beneficial for learning trace eyeblink conditioning (TEBC) compared with inspiration-systole (INS-SYS) in healthy young adults.

Interactive scalp acupuncture combined with suspension digital occupational therapy for upper limb motor dysfunction after stroke: a multi-center randomized controlled trial.

Objectives: To observe the effects of interactive scalp acupuncture on upper limb motor function and activities of daily living in patients with upper limb motor dysfunction after stroke.

Methods: One hundred and twenty patients with upper limb motor dysfunction after stroke were randomly divided into an observation group(60 cases, 2 cases dropped out)and a control group(60 cases, 1 case dropped out). Both groups were treated with routine medication and rehabilitation.

Association of Different Combinations of rs671, rs429358, rs7412 Polymorphisms with Hypertension in Middle-Aged and Elderly People: A Case-Control Study.

Background: Hypertensive patients have a younger trend, and studies on the role of genetic factors in hypertension susceptibility have been inconsistent. Aldehyde dehydrogenases 2 (ALDH2) and apolipoprotein E (APOE) are involved in the pathophysiological processes of hypertension. To investigate the relationship of and polymorphisms with hypertension in middle-aged (30-59 years old) and elderly (≥60 years old) persons.

Cardiac cycle and respiration phase affect responses to the conditioned stimulus in young adults trained in trace eyeblink conditioning.

Rhythms of breathing and heartbeat are linked to each other as well as to the rhythms of the brain. Our recent studies suggest that presenting conditioned stimulus during expiration or during the diastolic phase of the cardiac cycle facilitates neural processing of that stimulus and improves learning in a conditioning task. To date, it has not been examined whether using information from both respiration and cardiac cycle phases simultaneously allows even more efficient modulation of learning.

Coherence Between Brain Activation and Speech Envelope at Word and Sentence Levels Showed Age-Related Differences in Low Frequency Bands.

Speech perception is dynamic and shows changes across development. In parallel, functional differences in brain development over time have been well documented and these differences may interact with changes in speech perception during infancy and childhood. Further, there is evidence that the two hemispheres contribute unequally to speech segmentation at the sentence and phonemic levels.

Neural Responses to Musical Rhythm in Chinese Children With Reading Difficulties.

The perception of the musical rhythm has been suggested as one of the predicting factors for reading abilities. Several studies have demonstrated that children with reading difficulties (RD) show reduced neural sensitivity in musical rhythm perception. Despite this prior evidence, the association between music and reading in Chinese is still controversial.

Rapid changes in brain activity during learning of grapheme-phoneme associations in adults.

Learning to associate written letters with speech sounds is crucial for the initial phase of acquiring reading skills. However, little is known about the cortical reorganization for supporting letter-speech sound learning, particularly the brain dynamics during the learning of grapheme-phoneme associations. In the present study, we trained 30 Finnish participants (mean age: 24.

Context-dependent minimisation of prediction errors involves temporal-frontal activation.

According to the predictive coding model of perception, the brain constantly generates predictions of the upcoming sensory inputs. Perception is realised through a hierarchical generative model which aims at minimising the discrepancy between predictions and the incoming sensory inputs (i.e.

Top-Down Predictions of Familiarity and Congruency in Audio-Visual Speech Perception at Neural Level.

During speech perception, listeners rely on multimodal input and make use of both auditory and visual information. When presented with speech, for example syllables, the differences in brain responses to distinct stimuli are not, however, caused merely by the acoustic or visual features of the stimuli. The congruency of the auditory and visual information and the familiarity of a syllable, that is, whether it appears in the listener's native language or not, also modulates brain responses.

Audiovisual Processing of Chinese Characters Elicits Suppression and Congruency Effects in MEG.

Learning to associate written letters/characters with speech sounds is crucial for reading acquisition. Most previous studies have focused on audiovisual integration in alphabetic languages. Less is known about logographic languages such as Chinese characters, which map onto mostly syllable-based morphemes in the spoken language.

Aging-related changes of EEG synchronization during a visual working memory task.

Differences of EEG synchronization between normal old and young people during a working memory (WM) task were investigated. The synchronization likelihood (SL) is a novel method to assessed synchronization in multivariate time series for non-stationary systems. To evaluate this method to study the mechanisms of WM, we calculated the SL values in brain electrical activity for both resting state and task state.

Brain Responses to Letters and Speech Sounds and Their Correlations With Cognitive Skills Related to Reading in Children.

Letter-speech sound (LSS) integration is crucial for initial stages of reading acquisition. However, the relationship between cortical organization for supporting LSS integration, including unimodal and multimodal processes, and reading skills in early readers remains unclear. In the present study, we measured brain responses to Finnish letters and speech sounds from 29 typically developing Finnish children in a child-friendly audiovisual integration experiment using magnetoencephalography.

Acupuncture for balance dysfunction in patients with stroke: A systematic review protocol.

Background: Balance dysfunctions in stroke survivors are common and have significant impact on functional independence and rehabilitation. As a crucial technique of Traditional Chinese Medicine, acupuncture has been used widely for balance dysfunctions after stroke, although its effective evidence is not clear. Hence, we plan this systematic review protocol to evaluate the value of its efficacy and safety for balance dysfunctions after stroke.

Salidroside alleviates cachexia symptoms in mouse models of cancer cachexia via activating mTOR signalling.

Background: Cachexia has a devastating impact on survival and quality of life for many cancer patients and contributes to nearly one-third of all cancer deaths; also, it is associated with poor responses to chemotherapy and survival. A better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of cancer-associated cachexia (CAC), coupled with effective therapeutic approaches, will improve management of progressive functional impairment in cancer patients. Salidroside, a phenylpropanoid glycoside in Rhodiola rosea L, has been reported to possess potential anti-fatigue, anti-ageing, and anti-Alzheimer's disease properties.

Assay of melamine in milk products with a pH-mediated stacking technique in capillary electrophoresis.

A pH-mediated stacking method in capillary electrophoresis as an assay for low concentrations of melamine in milk products was established. Real samples were treated with acetone and sodium acetate and injected directly after centrifugation and filtration. Several experimental factors, such as buffer pH, buffer concentration, sample matrix, injection/sweeping ratio, sweeping time/voltages, separation voltages, as well as sample pretreatment, which affected stacking and separation, were investigated and optimized.

[Pathologic changes caused by highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus: postmortem study of a case].

Objective: To report the postmortem findings of a case of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus occurring in human beings.

Methods: Postmortem examination was carried out in a deceased caused by highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus. Detailed light microscopy of major organs, including heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys and brain, was performed.